with autism. critics hailed the decision but noted boys are more known to an autism than girls. i'm antonio mora, thank for joining us, luis suarez is up next with "inside story". have a great night [ ♪ ] >> the drama. the conflict. everything was in place. a congressional committee defending itself against accusations of politicized work meant to harm a candidate. the candidate. hillary clinton, needing a strong day on the stand to relieve the burdens of benghazi and associated matters in relation to her emails. >> who is getting what they wanted. face-off on the hill.

it's "inside story". welcome to "inside story". i'm ray suarez, there were arguments, drama, tension and pedantic back and forth about the details of details. benghazi committee chairman said it was an effort to break through palmyra stonewalling to find the truth about the attacks that led to the death of americans including ambassador chris stevens in 2012. hillary clinton, secretary of state, the ambassador's boss at the time of the attacks. his committee has been under scrutiny, since the house majority leader intended to say more than intended about the political negotiations. later, backed up by stories from

a staffer and another republican congress maunt. libby casey has been following the testimony, is there anything we know that we didn't know this morning when we woke up? >> no bomb shells. changes have come between jim jordan, very conservative ohighan, and secretary clinton. jim jordan circling back to the night in the attack and the immediate aftermath, there was the initial response from the obama administration citing an inflammatory video creating protests in the middle east. the obama administration said that was linked to the attack. later they changed the perspective and said the attack was self-contained by an al qaeda-like group. hillary clinton said today something she said in the past.

that it was a confews fusing -- confusing time. hillary clinton brought out an email saying that two officers had been killed by an al qaeda-like group. this is at the same time the obama administration administration and the state department were talking about the inflammatory video, trying to show difference there. there has been a lot of focus and discussion on this issue of whether or not secretary clinton was disengaged in the security issues surrounding the benghazi compound. we heard one exchange by a member of congress, pushing her on whether or not she had taken security seriously enough. >> no one ever came to me and said we should shut down our

compound in benghazi. >> i'm saying shutting down, i'm saying protecting it. >> there has been talk that the committee's work was on the point of boiling over. what did we see. >> they set the tone take it's not about politics or hillary clinton, it's about getting to the facts. democrats pushed back saying the structure of the committee, and the tactics that the chairman has been using are, by their nature, political. there has been a lot of fighting here, but secretary clinton managed to stay above na, and a lot of big moments are between committee members. clinton needs to come out looking presidential, so to speak. looking like she is not dinged by this. so far she is coming out fairly

unscathed: an issue republicans brought up, email exchanges between the secretary and bloomen tham, someone on the outside emailing her. republicans are trying to say she was listening more to the outsider than to her own ambassador chris stephens. when it got the most heated hillary clinton watched a fight between two committee members. >> that's what i want to do. >> go ahead. >> i move we put into the record the entire transcript of sidney blumenthal. we'll release the emails. that way the world can see it. >> democrat elika cummin pressing to have all the testimony put in the public record. republicans voted that down. you get a sense of tension that's come up in the hearing,

but so far no major bomb shells or rev latory in the sense that it can hurt hillary clinton long term. that we can see. >> have investigations and hearings helped us to find out more about the circumstances that led to the death of four americans. as they are meant to do. have they damaged the candidacy and public profile of the former secretary of state. as so many democrats and republicans say they are plane to to. joining me now, the associate vice president from the center of middle east and africa, the you u.s. institute for peace. lawrence core, former secretary of defense, and kareem, a resident senior fellow at the atlantic council. let me start with you. you spent a lot of time in benghazi.

have the facts that have come out around the investigation demonstrated na they didn't realise how dangerous benghazi was. >> it's difficult to talk about protection of embassies. i spent time in benghazi, kaboom, baghdad. times that - the time that it shifts, happens without us detecting how much the threat is. hindsight is 20/20. that's a lot of what is going on. at the time of the incident, we knew that tensions were rising and violence escalating, that was so much hope on the ground. it was part of what is clouding judgment. >> during the hearings, broadly speaking, over the course of them, have you learnt anything useful about the way the state department works in protecting our embassies overseas, or the

inner thinking of the administration about what was going on in libya? >> not really. not from these hearings. what is important to say is that probably the secretary of state was not aware of the situation in tripoli completely 100% and benghazi. and as said. it was hard for us. we knew that benghazi was difficult, that there were killings, assassinations. the elections had just happened, and there was a debate focused on the new government, and only then with the hindsight, following 20/20, the government knew nothing. probably the state department itself was more secure than benghazi. and if - for more protection.

>> anything useful for you, lawrence koch. >> no, we know what happened. after the tragedy occurred, they appointed a panel led by admiral mullen, a former chairman, an ambassador of several administrations, and basically they explained what had happened. we already knew. since then we had eight committees, 32 hearings. obviously we know. and what tom and admiral mullen recommended, those are the steps we should take. the hearings aren't telling us anything we don't nope. >> when they try to put together a timeline of what the secretary knew, how she found ot facts of the developing situation, is there some use - you worked in

an give level inside administrations, is there some use in ferreting that stuff out. >> sure, if you go back and read the report, it's in there. that's the problem. yes, mistakes were made. what we should focus on is how do we correct them. do we need more, you know, people, in security, do we need more foreign service officers. i went through a horrible experience when i was in government with the tragedy in lebanon. 240 mostly marines were killed. we had an admiral do a report, he assigned blame and the congress took steps to fix the situation. that's what we need to do. that's where we'll pick it up when we consider the conversation. >> overtime, have the benghazi inquests changed anything about the life of diplomatic personnel overseas. if you head to a dangerous part of the world in the employ of

the u.s. government. are you safer than you were before the being hearings, if not, what are they about. face off on the hill, it's "inside story". now will be the panama canal. >> this will be flooded. >> we have upgraded for bigger ships. >> now we go for weeks without water. >> techknow's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> this is what innovation looks like. >> can affect and surprise us. >> i feel like we're making an impact. >> awesome! >> techknow - where technology meets humanity.

>> you know i would imagine i thought more about what happened than all of you put together. i've lost more sleep than all of you put together.

i have been wracking my brains about what more could have been done or should have been done. what must we do better? how do we protect the men and women that we send, without weapons, without support from the military, into some of the most dangerous places in the world. and so i will continue to speak out and do everything i can from whatever position i'm in. to honour the memory of those we lost. >> you're watching "inside story", i'm ray suarez. at the outset of this session of the benghazi, committee chairman told former secretary of state hillary clinton no one signed on to the committee to investigate you or your emails.

doherty said the purpose was to find out about the four people. all this time later we no about hillary clinton's friend sidney blumenthal - did we learn about the benghazi killings helping policy makers overseas. my guests are with me in washington. karim, how do you answer that. larry korb's and hillary clinton's observations that we send american to safer places. are they safer today? >> it's a difficult job. it's risky. how do you protect things. the only way is better intelligence, in my opinion, the only way is having people that know the surroundings, the suffering that -- of the people in the embassy. there's no way to have 100%

security in hostile territory, i don't think benghazi war was considered that style in at that time. it's... >> lauren, -- lawrence, is it safer to go on a plane... >> i think it's safer now. my son is in the foreign service, i feel personally. they know that they are serving their country, we can do better, we learn to preposition the military force to gets to that part of the world quicker, the state department budget is 10%. we need to do more things like that, providing security for

them in the areas. >> i learnt a phrase today i never heard before, expeditionary diplomacy. they were out of the embassy. the united states when it had been represented in libya was known as the capital, tripoli. is it a safer bet to go overseas with the united states, have we done anything in response to what we are finding out about the way this was handled. >> there are two points, both sides of the aisle are vulnerable beyond the response. since the republicans took over congress, the line its have been cut. it's consciously been cut. along the lines beyond security, how effective are they. if we hold everyone back, if you look at the embassies, they are fortresses. we need diplomacy to solve the

conflicts. it was the base of the opposition. it was where ambassador stephens was based before he was an ambassador. it was central to stabilizing libya. one of muammar gaddafi's policies was to focus on tripoli. so it was very strategic. let's remember ambassador stephens worked with him. it was very diplomatic. it was calculated. well informed. it was an unfortunate incident. again, we have the benefit of ianed site. i can't think of any operation, if we put a microscope on decisions we'd find many people negligible when we come back, we look at ken mccarthy crowing about

benghazi, he backpeddled, but it was out of the bag. have the actions of the committee made impacts on hillary clinton, the obama administration and congress. face-off on the mill, it's "inside story".

. >> the chairman might, say, ignore nor the words of our republican leadership and members and investigator. judge us by our actions, it is the actions of the committee that are the most damning of all. they have been singly focused on you. >> this is not a prosecution, mr sheer, you and i are familiar with them. i've reached no conclusions and i advise you to not reach any conclusions either to reach the end.

there's 20 more witnesses welcome back to "inside story". i'm ray suarez. have hillary clinton's hours of testimony on capitol hill had the effect desired by republicans to damage her in the public's eyes, to call into question her trustworthiness or fitness to higher office. or has she seen off her critics, keeping them from laying a damaging glove on her. omar in the institute of peace, and my other guests are still with me. what do you make of it? >> i think the right question has not been asked. she came out pretty well. if they wanted to damage her, they should have not asked was your decision to go to - to intervene in libya right or wrong, because that is not -

impossible to answer. people thought that muammar gaddafi would... >> the problem is they asked in the wrong questions. >> why, what, when was taken in the decision do overthrow muammar gaddafi. to move beyond the right to protect. that is damaging question. because then you can tell - you decided some time, some when to overthrow muammar gaddafi, to overthrow the regime. without a plan to follow up. and that is the plan, there was no follow up on the change of the regime, and no knowledge of the groups taking power, taking the power after all. there would have been no intelligence. and that led to the increasing stability that led possibly, probably to the outcome in benghazi.

>> so there were, omar, avenues of legitimate critique that this is leaving on the table. >> i think the legitimate technique is of the intervention themselves or limited to the state department or the u.s. but the entire coalition involved in libya, it is important to identify when was regime change part of the objective. it was sold under the responsibility to protect. that would be a limited intervention. once the country was destabilized we bought into a process to be part of the transition. >> it was ultimately limited. >> it was limited, but emphasise a crucial part for the coalition to enter. again, any form of intervention would need a day after. and president obama said that that was his key lesson learnt in the administration, there was no such thing as a light footprint. you needed a day after programme

that would be intensive diplomatic limit. >> were there lines of attack that may have been effective, but because of the highly politicized nature, it ended up not doing the damage. >> i think there were two things. one is talked about. the colin powell - you break it, you own it. what was your plan for the day after? didn't seem to be any. the other issue is before you had the fact, why were you selling this narrative about what caused it. one thing i learnt from my days in government is your first report from the field are usually long. they bought into the narrative... >> the video, yes. >> and all of that. then, of course, since it was ab election year, distorting it to

help the election, that was a mistake. you had season rice, the security advisor going out saying this is what happened. >> we are entering a couple of months away from voters heading out. is this whole process weakening hillary clinton? >> i don't think so. given her performance in the debate, it helps. in the months leading up to the testimony, a lot of things were coming out. the way she handled it toward, she looked presidential. and senator sanders saying we have enough of the emails. >> we have 30 seconds. give me a description of the state of play in libya? >> it's fright thing.

we have a large territory, no legitimate power. it expired on tuesday. this connects europe to north africa and the middle east. frightening in our war against terror. >> i want to thank by guests. i'll be back in a minute with a final thought on benghazi, responsibility and risk. send us your thoughts on twitter at aj "inside story" or follow me and get in touch at luis suarez news, or visit our facebook page and tell us what you thought of our hearings. we'd love to here

. >> when you visit the us state department, a few blocks from washington, inside the public entrance there's a wall of plaques commemorating personnel killed in the line of duty, including people from the lowest to the highest level who died across the world. for weeks the secretary of state's political enemies had a field day with accusations and hints that the state department callously and deliberately didn't protect the american outpost as if the secretary was utterly indifferent to whether ambassador stephens lived or

died. think about that. hard to believe. in light of event since, hard to imagine. by overstating the case, trying to portray the secretary of state as a murderer, they seem not to be able to resist the temptation to take a hay maker swing. by doing that they appear to have missed the chance to make a plausible and badged case. a flawed system allowing benghazi to get less attention than it needed in the chaos after the libyan civil war and in the end they may have handed hillary clinton the thing he hate. the opportunity to be in charge and outlast her critics. i'm guessing this probably isn't over yet. i'm ray suarez, and this is "inside story".

hillary clinton faces off against republicans. it's a marathon 11 hour congressional hearing over benghazi. welcome to al jazeera, coming up, 70 hostage rescued from an i.s.i.s. prison. a u.s. serviceman killed in the raid. new talks to end violence - we tell you why more israelis are